


KO (doesn't) Rules

by alleycatforthelulz



Series: Actor AU Ideas [3]
Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Actor AU, TKO Rules spoilers, and also bc it literally hurt me that much, but really it's mostly KO, but that was literally the worst choice he could have made, i stayed up to write this bc i have no self control, i want to preface this by saying that i do love ko, if anyone gets what the phone call is referencing then extra kudos to you, it's Existential Crisis Time baby, so man that ep hit hard huh?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:32:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alleycatforthelulz/pseuds/alleycatforthelulz
Summary: KO makes a choice—it's too bad KO doesn't get a choice at all.





	KO (doesn't) Rules

It starts with a grumble.

They’re walking back to their trailer when Turbo grumbles under his breath about a headache. KO isn’t too concerned. Headaches were common after stressful days like the one they just had. Hopefully they would be able to wrap up the finale within the next few days.

Turbo heads straight to bed after downing some painkillers. KO doesn’t have the heart to tell him that sleeping in the special effects makeup will just make it worse as he bids his brother goodnight. Peeks, the newest addition to their odd little family, excuses himself after a few minutes, grabbing a bottle of water and citing nausea as the cause as he heads to his room.

And really, KO thinks nothing of it. They’ve all had bad days before and filming always got super stressful around season finales. It’ll blow over soon.

* * *

It doesn’t blow over.

Over the next couple of days, Turbo and Peeks get worse. Turbo barely has the energy to do anything while Peeks cycles between being only slightly nauseous to complete incoherency. Peeks had always worried them before with his ability to seemingly pop in and out of nowhere but now it borders on a safety hazard when he disappears for days and comes back barely knowing who he is. KO tries to corral him on these days, tries to keep their newfound brother near them, while also trying to help Turbo as much as he can.

Then one day Turbo just stops. KO is eating breakfast, concerned with how his brother hasn’t gotten but too used to it at this point. Carol asks him to fetch his brother and he does just that after putting his dishes in the sink to wash later.

He bumps into Peeks in the hall and stops for a moment. There’s just something off about the way that his new brother is holding himself, as if he’s not even there in that moment. He won’t know until later that that was the moment that something inside Peeks broke.

“Peeks, what—” he starts but never finishes. Peeks slumps forward and he rushes forward to catch him in his arms but—

It’s like watching a meteor shower, the scattering of a thousand dandelion seeds, with a million untold wishes between them. He’s crying and for a moment it takes him to figure out why. Then another moment and another. Then he realizes he can’t remember why at all.

That had been another safety hazard they had been concerned about. Peeks’ ability to disappear also included memories too. It had led to a few emotional situations before they had figured that KO and Turbo being in the general vicinity of Peeks gave him enough juice to last a couple of days on his own. They had never actually _seen_ Peeks do it before but even so this time felt—

What was he talking about again?

With fear in his heart and tears in his eyes ~~for seemingly no reason~~ , KO ran into his brother’s room. He practically jumps on top of Turbo, expecting his brother to jolt awake and snap at him. Then KO would apologize and they would go to eat breakfast together and start on the newest episodes for the third season. And maybe with Turbo at his side, he could figure out what this new heartbreak-y feeling was.

Turbo never stirred.

(Later, he wouldn’t remember the event. At least, not wholly. He’ll remember chunks of it here and there, white spaces that take up the rest. He won’t remember how after the first few moments of trying to shake his brother awake, he screamed and wailed and begged for someone to do something, anything. He will remember his mother’s tearful face as she pleaded for him to calm down as the on set paramedics moved his brother onto a stretcher. He won’t remember how his mother guided him to his friends while she climbed into the back of the ambulance. He will remember looking up at them and wondering what else will be taken from him. He won’t remember asking in a wavering voice, “where are my brothers?” He will remember his friends frowning, “KO, you only have one brother,” and the awful blank feeling that followed.)

* * *

There’s only one place he can turn to. He barely understands all the technical mumbo jumbo about alternate realities and the like but what he does know is that his universe receives ripples from KO Prime’s universe. And that if there’s anyone who would know what happened, it would be KO himself.

 **knockouthero** _responded to_ **sounds fake but OK**

 **knockouthero** : gyuss tubro si

 **knockouthero** : hse

 **powcardsrule** _responded to_ **sounds fake but OK**

 **powcardsrule** : woah slow down!

 **powcardsrule** : and spell check!

A chill runs through him as he stares at the two messages. It’s something small but he can’t help but notice how they lack the little identifying markers that usually accompany them. He tries to ignore it and swallow his paranoia.

 **knockouthero** : its turbo

 **knockouthero** : hes

The little dots at the bottom of the screen that signified that KO prime was typing stop with an alarming abruptness. The unease that has coiled in his guts only grows stronger.

 **knockouthero** : he wont wake up

 **wowiezowie** _responded to_ **sounds fake but OK**

 **wowiezowie** : tko disappeared

 **powcardsrule** : are u sure he didn’t just return to u?

 **wowiezowie** : this is different

 **powcardsrule** : r u sure?

There’s a lump in his throat as a feeling of wrongness creeps over him. He breathes—

 **knockouthero** : what about your tko?

—and bites the bullet.

 **powcardsrule** : huh?

 **powcardsrule** : oh

 **powcardsrule** : he’s grounded

His stomach drops out.

 **wowiezowie** : grounded?

 **powcardsrule** : yeah

 **powcardsrule** : he didn’t want to follow the rules so i grounded him

 **powcardsrule** : but don’t worry!

 **powcardsrule** : he’s home

He has to say something.

 **knockouthero** : he’s gone

 **powcardsrule** : ?

 **wowiezowie** : who?

 **knockouthero** : i don’t know

And then he throws his phone as far away as he can, curls around his pillow, and sobs himself to sleep.

* * *

(In a wonderous place of in between, they meet again.

His brother frowns. “K-Prime did something… bad.”

He leans forward, burrowing into his brother’s side and trying to savor the moment. “Bad… how?”

His brother’s frown deepens. “He hurt T-Prime. T-Prime hurt him first but K-Prime hurt him _bad_.”

His hand tightens around his brother’s hand. “How do we fix it?”

Peeks looks at him with empty eyes. “We can’t.”

“…who are you again?”

“It’s time to wake up KO.”)

* * *

He tries one last thing. He picks up his phone and dials in a number, making sure to add three ones to the beginning for the out of universe extension along with the prefix for mindscape phone numbers. He knows that it’s a wild shot in the dark since KO Prime mentioned that his Turbo wasn’t very good at keeping up with stuff but he’s all out of options.

_Click._

“H-hello? Tur—TKO? Are you there?”

_“… n……… o……”_

“TKO?”

_“ge… t…… re……… kt…”_

“W-what happened? Turbo collapsed and—and _someone_ is gone—and I don’t know—”

_“ha…… ha……… h…………… a……”_

“TKO please.”

_“…………………”_

“TKO…?”

_“…………………I can’t stop.”_

_Click._

* * *

**knockouthero** _responded to_ **sounds fake but OK**

 **knockouthero** : what did you do

 **knockouthero** : KO WHAT DID YOU DO

 **powcardsrule** _has blocked further messages from_ **sounds fake but OK**

**Author's Note:**

> chap 2 will be here when tko is back. on another note, man I have a pko piece for this AU in the works that got into how the Prime Universe (aka the show universe) affects the Actor Universe but watching TKO Rules left me in a very sad state. I couldn't even tell you why it got me so sad in the first place but I knew I had to write _something_. so I wrote this
> 
> also, yes, **wowiezowie** is game!KO who actually has matching usernames with game!TKO ( **imadeanowie** ). the reference is to something really silly I've said before and I refitted it to match their usernames ^^;;
> 
> as for what ko did.... while i'm not a fan of it, it makes sense. I already went on a bit of a tangent [here](https://alleycatforthelulz.tumblr.com/post/186108788981/bc-i-literally-cant-shut-up-about-tko-rules-obvs) and i'm already in the process of writing an essay about tko but the most important part if you don't want to read it is this: _in all the eps he’s [tko's] appeared in, all of his destruction comes from deep rooted issues that ko already had. and it makes me so sad that ko can’t see this bc he doesn’t want to see it. he doesn’t want to see that these issues that he’s always brushed aside are actually a Big Deal and it doesn’t help that now he’s associated them with tko and he’s associated tko as Violent And Bad so tko can’t be right, **right**? but for now… he can’t stop :’( _


End file.
